Top 5 Hashtag Dos and Don'ts for Schools and Education Brands

Confused about how to best use hashtags for your education brand? How many hashtags should you be using? Where should you put your hashtags? How do you know what hashtags to use? Don’t worry! You are not alone! Hashtags can seem daunting and hard work, but they needn’t be! Not including hashtags in your educational establishments’ social media strategy, is not advised. Well researched hashtags will not only help boost your school or company’s engagement with social media audiences, but also get more eyes on your content - so including them is a no brainer.

We have outlined our dos & don’ts to help you get on top of your hashtag strategy & start reaching more people with them!

Dos 

1. Do carry out hashtag research Spend some time researching hashtags for your industry and related to your content pillars. This may be time-consuming but is worthwhile to find the best hashtags to use for your school’s content rather than picking random tags as and when you are creating your posts. The search function in Instagram is the best place to carry out hashtag research where you can search keywords and then be shown a list of potential hashtags to use. Keep your target market in mind and think about what things they may be searching for. A spreadsheet works well to create your set(s) of hashtags, make sure to regularly update them too! You may also want to consider investing in a hashtag-specific research and analytics tool like Flick. We also include this service in our monthly social media management package fee, so you don’t need to worry about keeping on top of it!

2. Do create branded hashtags Create your own branded Instagram hashtags using your school’s name & encourage staff/parents/students to use them when posting content. This is a great way to help spread the word about your establishment, find content created by your followers, and build a sense of community around your school. 

3. Put your hashtags in the caption There has been a lot of debate by marketers over the years about where to put your hashtags on Instagram with some opting to put them in the caption itself and others preferring to hide them in the comments. The debate was finally put to rest by Instagram who recently confirmed that hashtags should always go in the caption to increase the chances of them being seen by their algorithm. 

4. Experiment with the number of hashtags The maximum number of hashtags you can use is 30 and while some users use all of them (30x more chances of being seen!) (update: Instagram now recommends using just 5-9 hashtags so as to avoid spamming lots of hashtags. We recommend experimenting to see which approach works best for you). others stick to a smaller number of post related hashtags to save time. The best advice is to experiment and keep track of your insights to see what works best for your account, niche and community. 

5. Follow hashtags You can follow hashtags that are of interest to your school or education company (e.g., local or educational hashtags such as #independentschoollondon and #studyinuk) which will then be shown to you in your feed. This is a great way to keep up with what others are doing in your industry and also find accounts to engage with. 

How to start your hashtag research on the Instagram app or desktop.

Don’t

1. Don’t neglect to use them! While reels & video content have been hogging the limelight of late, hashtags are still an effective way to increase your reach on Instagram. They can help your posts reach your target audience, attract new followers & increase engagement so don’t forget to add (researched) hashtags to your posts & reels.

2. Don’t use hashtags that are too large (or too small) When carrying out your hashtag research for your school, avoid hashtags with hundreds of thousands/millions of posts, unless you are an account with many thousands of followers (100k+). These are extremely popular and it is more than likely your content will get lost and not seen by your target market - so it could be a wasted hashtag . Use a variety of sizes with 1k posts to max 100k posts, and use a combination of small and ‘larger’ volume hashtags on each post, as a general rule.

3. Don’t use hashtags unrelated to your industry Make sure your hashtags relate to your content & the education sector. Using unrelated or irrelevant hashtags may help describe a feeling (e.g. #happy #love) but serve no purpose and can attract the wrong audience.  

4. Don’t use banned hashtags Yep, banned hashtags on Instagram are a thing! They are hashtags that have been reported to Instagram as they have been found to go against Instagram’s guidelines. Some are unexpected (e.g., #ValentinesDay) so it is important to be aware as using any of them will hurt your reach and mean your content isn’t seen. 

5. Don’t always use the same hashtags Mix your hashtags up depending on the content you are posting and be sure to refresh your researched hashtags every few months to ensure they are up to date. 

In short, using hashtags strategically is key to increasing your reach & attracting your target market so they are not to be neglected! Effective hashtag research and implementing these dos & don’ts is a great place to get started. If you are looking for more guidance on hashtags and how to increase your education brands organic reach on social media, we offer bespoke 1-1 training for all aspects of social media, you can book a free consultation to find out more here.